OK... doing just a minor comparison (file size) between 2-pass and 1-pass encoding on simple 15min Cartoon/Animation (Aqua Teen Hunger Force for you AdultSwim people )... the difference in "time" is 40mins per MPG file to transcode to a 2-pass MP4 vs a 1-pass... the difference in "file size" is only 1-0 (yes Zero) MB. I see little benefit of a 2-pass on a 32 (or less) color video like a cartoon

OK... doing just a minor comparison (file size) between 2-pass and 1-pass encoding on simple 15min Cartoon/Animation (Aqua Teen Hunger Force for you AdultSwim people )... the difference in "time" is 40mins per MPG file to transcode to a 2-pass MP4 vs a 1-pass... the difference in "file size" is only 1-0 (yes Zero) MB. I see little benefit of a 2-pass on a 32 (or less) color video like a cartoon

Haven't done a comparison of a movie yet

Is this using XVID4PSP? I haven't done any conversion to anything other than MPEG2, so I don't have any experience to draw from. From what I saw on MPEG2 conversion, 1-pass vs 2-pass is that there is some size savings (I think I converted a 1 hr episode from DVD and saw something like 2.5GB vs 2.0-2.2GB). I am currently not space limited though, so I don't see a need for 2X conversion time to save ~10-15% in file size.

I am not surprised that you saw almost no difference in file size for an animation though. I would stick with single pass always for that. I would think the biggest benefit would come from a movie that has a mix of action and relatively still shots. 1-pass will tend to err on the high side for bitrate whereas 2-pass would allow the encoder to come back and encode the still shots at a lower bitrate with minimal loss.

So can you play the file off of your PC with PyTivo without transferring it to the Tivo?

Not with pyTivo, but there are a couple of tools for doing it:StreamBabyHME/VLC Video Streamer
(Also if you happen to be using Mac platform I believe there are new versions of PyTivoX that integrates StreamBaby capabilities.)

I would guess that "minimum" qualities for anything resembling HD are atleast 720x480... I would suggest experimenting. If you open the untranscoded .tivo/mpeg files in a player you should be able to find out the native resolution for your file(s). See if you can find some standard resolutions in the ratio of 16:9 that coincide with the original resolution... then experiment

Not with pyTivo, but there are a couple of tools for doing it:StreamBabyHME/VLC Video Streamer
(Also if you happen to be using Mac platform I believe there are new versions of PyTivoX that integrates StreamBaby capabilities.)

Will Streambaby stream stuff from my Freenas server or do the files have to be on the PC running Streambaby?

I am not familiar with freenas servers, but if they can run java programs, and have ffmpeg installed, then they can stream using streambaby.

However, if your movie requires transcoding, most NAS servers generally don't have the processing power to do so..

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Will Streambaby stream stuff from my Freenas server or do the files have to be on the PC running Streambaby?

I haven't tried specifying network locations with streambaby (i.e. //server/share in windows notation) but I think that should work. i.e. I would think if nothing else you can run streambaby on PC and specify a network share as one of the top level directories.

Well I gave it a whirll and I was able to play a AVI file and Mpg4 file off of my server. The AVIs looked like crap but those were TV shows. The ripped movie played OK though. Still trying to figure out what needs to go into that .ini file.

Just got my Tivo HD around two weeks ago, I would like to thank all of you which developed great tools, Galleon, Streambaby, pytivo and ect ... for Tivo community. Just installed Galleon and Streambaby and it seems work fine for basic configuration. Great tools and thanks again.

Could I get someone to comment on a problem I have not been able to resolve. The problem is that nearly all of transfers of ripped DVDs (TiVo Desktop ---> Series 3) fail before the movie has been completely transfered. I might get 5 minutes of a movie or I might get 90 minutes. This is a problem others have posted in the past, but I have not been able to solve.

My preferred method of ripping is to use the DVDdcrypter to make a single mpg file keeping the original Audio\Video streams as they are on the DVD. The results are perfect for my needs and works if I stream the movie to the TiVo (stream Baby) or to te Xbox 360 using Media Center. I get full video\audio quality as if it were being played from the original DVD. But so far, the same movies that stream perfectly fine to TiVo or Xbox to fail download the movie 100% when I use TiVo Desktop 2.6.2 (not tried other software like pyTivo)

I am pretty technically savvy, so could could I get some insights as to why nearly all my attempts to transfer mpg movies to my Series 3 fail before transfer is 100% complete. All the mpg movies I have ripped work perfectly fine with every other program or hardware device I have tried.

Note: I can upload\download TiVo recordings perfectly fine. No errors if the content was recorded by one of my TiVos; my problem is strictly with ripped movies.

Thx moyekj... I am a registered user of VideoReDo, and so far the results remain the same with, or without, Quickfix. Just last night I tried The Dark Knight and the transfer gets to 56 minutes and stops. Other movies are just as consistent, except where they stop is at different points, each movie having it own unique point of failure. Even if I start all over and rip the movie again and again, the point of failure remains the same when uploading the movie to the S3.

One observation is that all the converted movies appear to have length of 00:00:00 on TiVo. This is some kind of clue, but I have yet to figure how to fix that problem without re-encoding the entire movie (yeck!).

Could AnyDvd have anything to do with it? Maybe I should disable it and try letting DVD decrypted the movie.

Will Streambaby play multiple vob files from one folder for when you rip a movie?

I know you can rip the movie as 1 vob file and I know you can just change the extension to MPG as well.

Yes, if you choose play on a folder it will play all files alphabetically in that folder. Alternatively if you are inside a folder you can use the "FF" remote button to play files from the cursor position down. (No need to change extension to .mpg either as .vob should be recognized)

Thx moyekj... I am a registered user of VideoReDo, and so far the results remain the same with, or without, Quickfix. Just last night I tried The Dark Knight and the transfer gets to 56 minutes and stops. Other movies are just as consistent, except where they stop is at different points, each movie having it own unique point of failure. Even if I start all over and rip the movie again and again, the point of failure remains the same when uploading the movie to the S3.

One observation is that all the converted movies appear to have length of 00:00:00 on TiVo. This is some kind of clue, but I have yet to figure how to fix that problem without re-encoding the entire movie (yeck!).

Could AnyDvd have anything to do with it? Maybe I should disable it and try letting DVD decrypted the movie.

Try ripping with AnyDVD and then joining with VideoRedo. That is what I do and I do not have any issues with timestamps or failures to upload. If you only have VideoRedo Plus (rather than TVSuite), you might want to download the latest beta software. It has an open DVD folder option which is nice for opening and joining the 1GB chunks that normally rip from DVDs (i.e. if you don't use DVDshrink or DVD decrypter and tell them to rip as one).

Hi,
new to the forum and looking to buy my 1st setup. I just wanted to confirm that you can have one Tivo acitve and recording, but also have one or more Tivos that are just used for the networking and/or to pause live TV (e.g. not active with the Tivo service).

I sort of felt that this is what the tread was describing but wanted to confirm before I proceed to buy my setup.

Hi,
new to the forum and looking to buy my 1st setup. I just wanted to confirm that you can have one Tivo acitve and recording, but also have one or more Tivos that are just used for the networking and/or to pause live TV (e.g. not active with the Tivo service).

I sort of felt that this is what the tread was describing but wanted to confirm before I proceed to buy my setup.

Thanks in advance for any help.. Jim

You cannot. You need service on all tivos in order to enable transfers.

Yes, if you choose play on a folder it will play all files alphabetically in that folder. Alternatively if you are inside a folder you can use the "FF" remote button to play files from the cursor position down. (No need to change extension to .mpg either as .vob should be recognized)

The only downside I had when playing a movie this way is when it went to the next vob file it opened up a window (paused the movie) and then kicked back in.